


Bughead and the Mysterious LARP Campaign

by OldTsuki



Series: Prompts Prompts Prompts [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Adult Bughead, Betty Jones is in love, Bughead investigates, F/M, Jughead Jones is a dork, LARPing, One Shot, Private Investigators, Role Playing, betty can't handle this, bughead would totally have a sherlock study in their house, married bughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-18 22:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldTsuki/pseuds/OldTsuki
Summary: Betty and Jughead Jones have a private investigation business, and a client has asked them to investigate a series of petty crimes that occurred during a LARP campaign. To Betty's surprise, Jughead enthusiastically accepts the challenge. They attend a fantasy battle to ask their questions, and get a little more than they bargained for. Rated T for a bit of language--this is a one-shot for the Bughead Investigates in Strange Places collection!





	Bughead and the Mysterious LARP Campaign

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so first I have to apologize, because I have the most basic cursory knowledge of LARPing and role playing, and some of these details were the result of some quick Googling. Second, I'm not at all judgmental of those who enjoy this sort of thing--if I wasn't such an introvert, I probably would be involved in a group myself.
> 
> Get ready for a lot of laughter from Jughead...he might laugh most of the fic...I'm not sorry about it.

“And adults do this?” Betty repeated, staring down at the book that lay open on the table. Black and white sketches stared back at her, surrounded by words and numbers so foreign that they might as well have been left on the earth by an alien race. Maybe they were, for all she knew.

Jughead was laughing at her, patiently glancing from the book to a piece of paper he’d cocked on the edge of the table. He was writing steadily, dropping a strange die with too many sides every so often and diligently recording the results. Betty looked down at the sheet, perturbed. As a natural perfectionist, she rarely had to struggle to understand anything. With her meticulous note-taking and system for organizing information, Betty hardly even needed to study for her classes as a kid. But this--she felt like she could study for a thousand years and still be confused by what exactly her husband was talking about.

“Come on, Betts, we have to make convincing characters if they’re going to buy our cover story,” Jughead prompted, his pen finally coming to a rest across his notes.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do _you_ know how this works, Jug?” she asked, unable to keep the slightly accusatory tone out of her voice. 

He raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? You married the weirdest kid in the school, and you’re surprised that I know how to LARP?”

Betty just blinked at him, trying not to wince as he threw that strange word between them again. When they’d taken this assignment, Jughead had been the one that handled most of the communication with their client. Betty was only vaguely aware that the case would involve some sort of complex disguise on their part, which was why a small pile of outlandish-looking weapons was now heaped in the center of her living room floor.

She looked back at the book, her brows unconsciously coming together as she struggled again to make sense of the choices she’d have to make. “Tell me again what you told me to pick?” she asked, resigned to her fate.

His mouth was still twitching with hardly restrained laughter as he slid the book toward himself and jabbed a finger at the page. “You have to decide the race of your character. You can be a dwarf, elf, halfling, human, half-elf, or half-orc in this campaign.” 

Betty let those words sink into her conscious mind for a moment, mulling them over. “And why wouldn’t I want to be human?” she asked. Some vague recollection of an incredibly long fantasy movie swam to the back of her mind, but Betty hadn’t gotten to fully pay attention to the entire narrative when she and Jughead watched it. They’d been seventeen; Jughead had insisted that she needed to see all eighteen hours of people running through woods and fighting poorly costumed monsters, and Betty had been unable to keep herself from falling asleep as she cuddled against her boyfriend in the sticky summer heat. Her waking recollections of the film were punctuated with memories of heavy petting, since it seemed like they hadn’t been able to keep their hands (or bodies) to themselves when they were that age. Those bits, she _did_ remember.

Jughead propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand, smirking at her. “Humans are boring,” he said, still amused. “Why wouldn’t you want to be an elf or a dwarf?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m a grown woman, and this is sounding more and more ridiculous.”

He regarded her patiently.

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll be an elf, I guess.”

“Good choice,” he said. Jughead flipped over his sheet and made a note, glancing back at the book. “Next, what’s your class?”

Betty shrugged, looking over at the book. Her eyes skimmed the page for the briefest moment before jumping back to his face like the words had burned her. “How can I possibly introduce myself to anyone as an elf wizard with a straight face?” she demanded, as her husband dissolved into a fit of laughter. Betty glared, sliding the book toward herself. “No, seriously, Jug...none of these sound any better. What’s a cleric?”

He deftly flipped to the front of the book, pointing to a paragraph of description, still unable to stop his giggling. Betty glanced it over, chewing her bottom lip in distraction. Jughead struggled mightily to regain his composure and said, amidst hiccups of residual laughter, “Maybe you should be a bard. That will be the easiest for you, I think. You’ll just have to sing a some point, probably.”

She looked over in semi-horror. “Sing?” she repeated. “Sing what? Some sort of elvish song of my people? Should I be listening to Enya?”

That cast Jughead into a fit of laughter that gripped him so hard he had to wipe tears off his cheeks, and it took several minutes for him to recover enough to even look at her. Gasping as he regained his breath, he said, “No, Betty. You can just make shit up. I doubt any of these people actually know elvish.”

With a shrewd look, she said, “Do you?”

Jughead mockingly clasped a hand over his heart. “Shots fired, Betty Cooper.”

Betty had been through enough for one afternoon, she decided. The way his mouth was quirked to one side was too tempting to ignore. She leaned across the table, grabbing a handful of his shirt to pull him over for a kiss. Jughead came willingly, responding enthusiastically as she tilted her head to flick her tongue against his.

Just as he moaned against her mouth, she drew back and flashed him a wicked smile. “Betty _Jones_ says we’ll come back to that later, Juggie. So what else do I need to know?”

He blinked at her with a somewhat dreamy, dazed look and then said, “Uh, not much. We will just get your costume and weapons set up, finish your character stats, and we’ll be ready for the battle tomorrow.” Did he realize that she was tantalizing him on purpose? Probably not.

Betty swiped the keys off the table. “Let’s go, then. Fantasy Attic won’t be open much longer.”

\---------------

Jughead wasn’t going to lie to himself or anyone else—he was excited to start this investigation with Betty. When he’d proposed the Swords and Serpents club in high school, it had been devised to allow the Southside Serpents a safe place to gather on the north side of town. As he’d planned, the moment “fantasy role playing” left his lips, Weatherbee’s eyes had glazed over and the faculty consent had been in the bag. The rest was history.

When they’d gotten the initial contact from their client, Betty quit before she’d even started. “I have no idea what half of this message even says, Jug,” she admitted, sliding her laptop across the antique desk in the center of their study. He leaned over, skimmed the email, and immediately began to type a response.

Somewhere during that time, he’d realized that taking on this case would ultimately result in playing dress up with his gorgeous wife. And that glorious moment had finally come to fruition, perhaps better in real life than he’d imagined.

She stepped out of the fitting room and tugged at her bodice, making a face. “Are you sure there wasn’t anything else in the bag?” she asked, walking over to peer at the plastic case that he’d taken the costume out of. The bodice had spaghetti straps and ended just below her rib cage, leaving her exquisitely toned midriff exposed. Jughead couldn’t help the idiotic grin that spread across his face. The silk panels of her skirt slid to one side when she leaned over, revealing the perfect milky curve of her outer thigh. He reached over like a man possessed, shivering at the electric tingle that spread through his fingers as he brushed them over her hip.

Betty’s cheeks flushed and she glanced furtively at him, then checked their surroundings. Before she could say anything, he breathed, “This is perfect.”

She huffed and moved out of his reach. “You’re going to get us thrown out,” she complained. With a roll of her eyes, she snatched the bag from his lap. “We’ll get this one then, since you like it so much. But you had better know that I’ll be writing a piece on the misogyny of the women’s fantasy apparel industry after we close this case, Jug.”

He straightened, nodding empathetically. “Of course, Betts. It’s terrible that they don’t have more modest choices for elven bards.”

Betty rolled her eyes and vanished back into the changing room. “What are you, again?” her disembodied voice asked, somewhat accusingly.

Jughead’s grin intensified. “An elven rogue,” he replied. The best choice for their investigation, since no one at the campaign would question him wandering around the field. “Maybe you should write a song about my adventures, for authenticity.”

She was quiet for a moment, only the sound of rustling fabric coming from the fitting room. Then she shocked him completely by singing, “ _The elven rogue Jughead, rode forth from his home…”_ She paused, evidently thinking of the next line. “ _He was nerdy, and dorky, and hoping to bone…_ ”

He dissolved into laughter again, feeling like his ribs were going to break apart if he didn’t convince his body to stop emitting great hiccuping giggles. Wiping the corners of his eyes, he laughed even harder when Betty emerged from the fitting room and he caught sight of the look on her face. His amusement was contagious, and soon she was laughing as well.

If the store clerk glared at them as Jughead passed over his credit card, neither one particularly cared. Two fantasy costumes on the payroll of their client later, and they were on their way back to Riverdale.

————————

A. Did Betty feel ridiculous wearing a costume in June, complete with prosthetic ears? 

B. Did she think that it was humiliating to go out in public dressed like an elven bard (whatever that was)?

C. Did she slightly resent her extremely amused husband for taking on this nonsensical case?

On a multiple choice exam, she’d choose the option that read ‘D. All of the above’. 

Betty tried to mentally prepare herself for the day that lay ahead, glancing anxiously at the quiver of arrows resting between her knees in the passenger seat. Archery had always been Cheryl’s thing, and while she’d given Jughead and Betty the briefest of tutorials, it hardly inspired the confidence that real mastery would bring. Plus, she’d shrewdly asked several pointed questions in an attempt to uncover the reasoning behind Betty’s sudden interest in her lifelong hobby. Betty would swallow her plastic pointed ears before she’d admit to Cheryl that she was about to play dress up in a park, even if it was for an investigation. Her secrecy had probably truncated their tutorial, too.

Jughead slid their car into park and glanced over. “Ready?” he asked. He had swapped his usual hat for an elvish cap, which tapered into a point at the nape of his neck. Wearing a simple white linen shirt with a stretch of cord woven over his sternum, he was looking like the cover model of a magazine that might have been named something like _Fantasy Fellas_. Betty had to reluctantly admit to herself that the costumes were a tiny bit fun, though she was going to put them in a box until October the minute they got home.

She glanced at the sheet they’d printed, which listed the details of the case. “So, poisoning, sabotaged weapons, and some sort of missing golden guild trophy, whatever that is,” she read, frowning. “Should I just follow your lead and look around on this one?”

Jughead looked across the parking lot, where a group of adult men in costumes were drawing broadswords and crossbows out of the back of a minivan. He absently scratched his jaw in consideration. “You might get further with the questioning than me,” he replied, at least having the decency to look apologetic about it. “We’ll write about the misogyny this weekend, love, but I’m just being realistic,” he said, in response to the look she gave him.

She groaned. “Wonderful. I give them five minutes before they catch on to me.”

He shook his head, the corners of his lips quirking upward like he was struggling again not to smile. “I doubt it, Betts. They’ll probably be more than happy to show you the ropes. Just tell them it’s your first time.”

She felt a shiver of nerves—or maybe disgust—roll through her stomach at those words. Betty slid the file into the glove box and got out of the car.

Like most of their investigations, they’d agreed to leave their wedding rings in the little tray on the dresser at home. Betty and Jughead had been an investigative team before they’d been a romantic one, and they’d discovered shortly after their marriage that those bits of silver and stone always seemed to hamper their ability to interrogate when necessary. She anxiously ran her thumb over the smooth place where her ring would normally go, missing the ability to calm her nerves by spinning it around and fidgeting. 

Jughead jogged around the car to her side, buckling a sheathed sword across his torso like a messenger bag. Betty felt a fresh wave of foolishness was through her as she slung her quiver across her back and carried her bow across the parking lot. 

She noticed a pickup truck parked near the minivan, which appeared to have some five gallon drums of refreshments arranged in the back. A few costumed individuals, including the first woman she’d seen so far, were arranging cups and packages of snacks along the lowered tailgate. As Betty and Jughead approached, the cloaked woman glanced over. 

“Hello there, newcomers,” said a bearded man with a booming voice. Betty was betting, after getting a look at his well-worn costume, that he’d grown the beard specifically for this weekend hobby. She cast an appreciative eye at her husband’s clean-shaven jawline and fixed her best Cooper smile in place.

“Salutations,” Jughead replied warmly. “We saw on Meetup that this was an open event--I hope that wasn’t a typo?”

The man grinned and shook his head. “You read correctly…?”

“Pendleton, the rogue,” Jughead supplied. “And this is Lady Sariya, the bard.”

Betty tried not to look surprised at the name he’d assigned her, choosing to discreetly elbow him instead. The corner of Jughead’s mouth twitched in response.

“Welcome, Pendleton and Sariya, to the humble field of Tarkalin. We are pleased that you have chosen to join us on this fine midsummer’s day in defense of our rightful lands,” their host intoned. “I am Lord Aethar, half-elven ruler of these lands.”

To Betty’s surprise, Jughead dropped to one knee. She felt her eyebrows raise before a quick glance told her that she was supposed to follow his lead. Crouching, and trying not to let her costume get too dirty, she tried to recompose her expression to look less shocked. “Lord Aethar, we humbly pledge our services to you, our half-kin,” Jughead replied. 

Betty made a mental note to ask him to swear that his live action role playing days would be over once they’d gotten their information.

“Arise, loyal defenders,” boomed Lord Aethar, raising his hands empathetically. She straightened, brushing the parking lot dust off her skirt panels. To Betty’s immediate horror, the bearded man added, “Perhaps Lady Sariya might delight us all with a song as we prepare for the day’s battle.”

At her look of shock, Jughead chivalrously came to her rescue. “Lady Sariya would normally love to delight you, Lord Aethar, but she’s still getting over a cold.”

To reinforce his lie, Betty sniffled.

The bearded man gestured magnanimously and said, “Let it be known that Lord Aethar wishes you a quick recovery, Lady Sariya. Then please, make yourselves comfortable, and enjoy our Tarkalin hospitality.” He grinned and gestured toward the truck, where the cloaked woman was holding out a plastic cup of juice and smiling.

Betty echoed the expression. “Thank you, Lord Aethar,” she rasped, dipping into a little curtsy. She wasn’t sure if elves curtsied to half-elves, but she figured that it couldn’t hurt. Without forgetting that there had been reports of poisoning from the client, Betty took the cup of kool-aid and sniffed it. After that whiff of sugar, she hazarded taking a sip.

\----------------

Jughead took a quick step back to avoid the tip of the sword, thinking ruefully that Betty might have been wise to decline the case when they’d gotten the email. As far as he knew, LARP campaigns were supposed to involve facsimile weapons. The tip of that silver blade looked awfully dangerous, though. His assailant, caught up in the frenzy of battle, dashed off to find an opponent with a drawn weapon to batter when Jughead nonverbally declined to fight.

Betty squealed from behind him. “Arrows!”

They ducked behind a few trees along the edge of the field to avoid the onslaught. The arrows weren’t tipped, so far as he could tell, but they would still give you a nasty welt if they hit you hard enough. A few even landed with hollow thuds, small bits of cloth tied to the end as if they were meant to be flaming.

He grabbed Betty’s hand and pulled her toward a large bush. “This is ridiculous,” he complained, glancing over the shrub at the chaos on the field.

Betty rolled her eyes. “Oh, _now_ you think so,” she grumbled. “We need to ask our questions and get out of here.”

Jughead nodded. “Yes, let’s split up for a minute. Don’t let any of these crazy assholes stab you, though,” he cautioned. “I don’t want to get arrested for purposely murdering anyone today.”

Betty drew an arrow from her quiver and readied her bow. Before she darted out from their hiding place, she said, “Next time, I’m choosing the case.”

He watched her dash off in the direction of the cars, hoping that she would ask the necessary questions about the poisoning. That left him to figure out what on earth was happening with the weapons and the golden trophy. Jughead carefully made his way along the edge of the field, his eyes on the tangle of would-be swordsmen at the center. His best chance at conversation would be to isolate one of the archers, or find other reluctant cowards hiding along the edges of the campaign.

As an arrow whizzed past his ear, narrowly missing his right eye, Jughead decided that he was going to trust Betty’s better judgment implicitly for the rest of his life. 

\-------------------------

Betty rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve the tension that had built up in them throughout the day. She was covered in dirt, and still felt grimy from her sweaty afternoon running around a field in a glorified Halloween costume while trying to avoid becoming seriously injured. She stared at her half-typed email, trying to find the most neutral words to articulate what she needed to explain to their client.

Jughead approached quietly behind her, his bare feet soundless on the thick carpeting of the study. They’d had so much fun outfitting the walls with bookshelves as newlyweds, then working together to give the space the most Sherlock Holmes feeling they could manage in the twenty-first century. Betty loved this room the most in their little house, which was fortunate because it served as the base of operations for all of the investigations they were hired to carry out. They spent a lot of time together there.

Her husband’s fingers sank into her knotted shoulders like she was nothing but warm butter. As he kneaded, she closed her eyes and took a break from the screen.

“So the poisoning was just a typical mistake,” he mused, glancing over her notes. “No one realized that the casserole had dairy in it, and they left it sitting out too long.” He snorted in dry amusement and added, “After speaking with them today, I’m not surprised. It must have tasted terrible, though. And a few ate enough to end up in the hospital.” The foodie in Jughead seemed personally offended by the mistake, though Betty wasn’t sure if he was more upset about the lack of discernment in those poisoned or the waste of a good casserole.

Betty nodded in response to his assessment, her eyes still closed. “Check,” she agreed.

“And the weapon malfunctions were mainly due to user error,” Jughead added, pausing for a moment. “Maybe because some of those people also don’t know what facsimile means.”

She groaned as his thumb found the center of the knot in her neck, her eyes opening. “Check,” she repeated. “Fuck, that feels good.”

Jughead sighed. “That just leaves the trophy, which seems to be truly missing. We’ll have to follow up with some of the players during the week to find out if anyone has heard anything about it.” He added, “Again, using a 24-carat family heirloom as the prize for a fake fantasy battle seems ill-advised, but at least they’ve hired the best private investigators in the county to get it back.”

Betty looked up at him with an imploring expression. “Please, Jug. No more LARP for us. I’m not a good enough actor to keep playing pretend like this.”

He smirked down at her. “Really, Lady Sariya? I thought you did so well today.”

Betty narrowed her eyes. “I had to run across a field while adults chased me with swords, Jug. It was terrifying and exhausting.”

His smile grew mischievous. “But you looked so sexy while you did it,” he commented, turning her chair towards him.

Realizing what he was up to, she let go of the frustration she was feeling and slid her hands around his waist. Betty pulled him towards her, meeting his questioning eyes with her intent ones. She rose from her chair, letting her body rub all the way up his as she straightened. Jughead’s expression darkened with a familiar hunger, his body reacting automatically to her stimulation. Betty smirked and stretched onto her tiptoes, sliding her arms around his neck to draw him to her.

“Why don’t you help Lady Sariya turn back into Betty Jones again, Sir Pendleton? A nice...hot...soapy...shower should do it,” she purred, punctuating each word for emphasis.

Jughead swept her off her feet in an instant, carrying her toward their bathroom. Sure, they’d have to go back another day to finish their investigation, but at least Betty had survived her first foray into the mysterious world of live action role playing. Whatever bits of information she’d learned about her husband’s latent interests that day, she’d investigate later. Right now, she was busy having her own laugh as he struggled to puzzle through the complicated system of laces on the back of her bodice.

**Author's Note:**

> So the working title for this was "Swords and Serpents" and I'd originally envisioned a fic where teacher!Jughead was asked to sponsor the roleplaying club he'd started as a student, which took on a life of its own after he graduated...but after writing two pages and deleting a page and a half, I couldn't think of a single thing to do where plot was concerned, so I scrapped it. A more powerful writer than I will have to breathe life into that head canon for me. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Your comments and kudos are always so appreciated.


End file.
